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GameDaily reports on new numbers from Nintendo, discussing their ongoing success with the Wii's Virtual Console offering. According to the piece, there are now over 100 games available on the service, and some 4.7 Million downloads have been transacted since the system's launch late last year. "Nintendo has been updating the Wii Shop with new Virtual Console games every Monday. The top five downloads worldwide to date have been Super Mario Bros. (NES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Mario Kart 64 (N64), Super Mario World (SNES), and The Legend of Zelda (NES). 'With an Internet connection rate reaching 40 percent, Wii owners have more options than ever to find the kinds of games they love to play,' says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. 'Beyond the Wii Shop Channel, all types of people are getting connected and checking out the information and entertainment options available on the Wii Menu. Whether voting, creating a Mii or just checking the weather, everyone has a favorite channel.'"

This sounds more like success for Nintendo in general rather than success for the Virtual Console. Sure, as Nintendo did with the N64, they have the ability to basically support the VC on their own, but in order to make it a true breakout success, they need the support of third parties. The only way they're going to get more of that is if the third party games actually sell. Maybe third parties don't care as much because of the extremely low development costs. That's possible. I can't imagine a company feeling too good about itself when it sees that it sold 7 copies of a game though.

One of the great things way back when home consoles became available was the ability to play until your heart's content without paying any additional money other than buying the console and the cartridge (hey, I started out with the Atari 2600). Of course I still would occasionally go to the arcade, but now I didn't have to.

Now that consoles (not just the WII of course) connect to the internet and there are shops (and advertisements) it's only a matter of time until someone rolls out a pay to play model. Of course there already are the online communities/games which require monthly subscriptions but c'mon, these companies can milk much more money out of us. It's only a matter of time before they do and it's very, very sad.

Yes but the Opera Browser and Everybody Votes are not Virtual Console offerings. This article is about Virtual Console offerings alone. Otherwise, surely the Opera Browser or Everybody Votes would have made it into the top five downloads... on account of, you know, being free. But they didn't. So it is clear to see that non-Virtual Console offerings have been left out of the tally.

I'd say that the VC has been successful for Nintendo, I mean they are selling games for $5 minimum a pop, it's not like they spend any significant amount of time developing the games. At $5 a piece thats $23.5 million dollars they made doing practically nothing.

I've purchased TG16 and Genesis virtual console titles. In addition, I've purchased SNES titles that were 3rd. party produced, such as Castlevania 4 (Konami) and Street Fighter 2 (Capcom). The 3rd. party titles are there to purchase.

In my opinion, there reasons Nintendo titles dominate the top five are:

1. Purchasers of the Wii might have a bias towards Nintendo titles.2. Many of the first party NES and SNES titles have withstood the test of time better than 3rd. party titles, in my opinion.3. A lot of the popular 3rd. party titles can't make it to the VC due to licensing issues, or the fact that they've been rereleased on the GBA. (The reason you likely won't see FF4-6 on the VC is due to the GBA rereleases).

What were the most popular SNES games of all times? You probably can't track this info down anymore, but I would wager that if you asked a bunch of gamers who played during that era, they're answer is going to be a first party title or a Square game.

I like VC games because I can play them when I am already in the mood to play a console game, and they save right where I pressed the Home button (in many of these games, there was no save feature and you had to play through the entire game in one sitting!).

I no longer have to dig up the old console, probably having to clean the cart before trying to boot it, or messing with the questionable legality of emulators/roms for computers.